Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Volume I--Part A: Historical Sketches--Letter A.

Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office, 1991. Revised Edition. Hardcover. good. Quarto, 520, v.1 only, illus., maps, top corner front flyleaf torn off, slight wear to board edges. Foreword by Admiral Arleigh Burke. This revised edition depicts each ship in its historical setting; the original edition was published in 1959. The Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships (DANFS) is the official reference work for the basic facts about ships used by the United States Navy. When the writing project was developed the parameters for this series were designed to cover only commissioned US Navy ships with assigned names. If the ship was not assigned a name it was not included in the histories written for the series. In addition to the ship entries, DANFS and the online links have been expanded to include appendices on small craft, histories of Confederate Navy ships, and various essays related to naval ships. DANFS was published in print by the Naval Historical Center (NHC) as bound hardcover volumes, ordered by ship name, from Volume I (A-B) in 1959 to Volume VIII (W-Z) in 1981. Several volumes subsequently went out of print. In 1991 a revised Volume I Part A, covering only ship names beginning with A, was released. Work continues on revisions of the remaining volumes. As the DANFS is a work of the U.S. government, its content is in the public domain, and the text is often quoted verbatim in other works (including in some cases Wikipedia articles). Many websites organized by former and active crew members of U.S. Navy vessels include a copy of their ships' DANFS entries. The Dictionary limits itself largely to basic descriptions and brief operational notes, and includes almost no analysis or historical context. Unless otherwise specified, all the ships illustrated in this volume are commission ships of the United States Navy with their names preceded by the Identification USS.